Campus bully: Why the Left fears a free education sector [India]

The Pioneer ^ | Thursday, July 9, 2009 | The Pioneer

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

In all the focus on Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposed changes in the school system, his suggestions for higher education have got neglected. To some degree, this was redressed in the discussion in Parliament on Tuesday, where the HRD Minister spoke of making it easier for quality institutions to call themselves full-fledged universities, rather than merely deemed universities. The implication was that if an institution could be trusted with making intellectual and physical investments and maintaining standards, it needed to be freed from the shackles of the bureaucracy in New Delhi. Similarly, the idea that first-rate foreign universities — as opposed to, it must be said, degree shops — be allowed to set up campuses in India or enter into collaborations with local educational service providers is also worth exploring. Indeed, the crisis in school education — the pressure of examinations, of securing that extra mark — is in a sense the product of the mess that is Indian higher education. College and technical education seats are practically rationed and not allowed to expand in keeping with market demands. At the root of this is not any desire to adhere to supremely high standards, but something far more down-to-earth — control. India’s education bureaucrats and regulatory system are designed for control freaks. Most of them, as it happens, are also Leftists or fellow travellers, frequently disguising their ideological agenda as academic independence. In the likes of Mr Arjun Singh — Mr Sibal’s predecessor — these people found a perfect Minister. Mr Singh’s five years did not just leave Indian higher education stagnant but actually pushed back its status. That is why, when the CPI(M) and other Left parties attack Mr Sibal and say his proposed opening up of higher education will only cripple indigenous academic excellence and research, it sounds like a cruel joke. Indian higher education has been kept sequestered and isolated by its self-appointed guardians. A small clique awards its members doctorates; then they give each other jobs, and finally graduate to regulatory positions. Technical education has broken away from this because, in individual States, a coalition of political patronage and private enterprise, has made engineering and medical colleges a thriving industry. However, standards are not uniform and the regulatory authorities are too compromised or ineffectual to make an impact. In the humanities and the sciences, the problem is absolute — in some disciplines, academia is divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ intellectuals, in an almost Stalinist classification.

Years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru said a university, at its best, must be “an adventure of ideas”. The hijack of India’s institutions of higher education and has meant that only politically correct ideas are allowed to surface. If higher education is liberalised, and if colleges are allowed to grow as they please and teach courses that respond to society rather than seek to condition it, the Left’s hold on the levers of the HRD Ministry will loosen. It is this that has the CPI(M) terrified. It is nobody’s case that Mr Sibal must be allowed to proceed without argument. Certainly, caveats are necessary, in particular to ensure that private and foreign educational institutions — if and when they come in — meet exacting benchmarks. However, this point can be made by independent stakeholders, not by the Marxist mafia that has reduced public-funded higher education to a racket in the first place.
 

 

[fortunecookie]

The hijack of India’s institutions of higher education and has meant that only politically correct ideas are allowed to surface.

Sounds familiar.